Broken parking meter not Easton Police Department's concern

View full sizeExpress-Times File PhotoThink a meter is broken? Move your car. It's not worth the risk of having to deal with the Easton Police Department's traffic officers.

Thinking of heading to Downtown Easton to do some shopping, check out a gallery or grab a bite to eat?

Better pack your quarters and put on your armor.

Since I work in Downtown, I’m typically on foot if I venture from the office. But on Friday, a post-work errand had me in my car, jockeying for a spot outside the always-crowded post office before I headed out of the city.

Since all of the free parking was taken, I pulled up to a meter and dropped in a quarter, figuring the person after me could use the minutes I wouldn’t need. But the meter swallowed the coin without registering the time. I scanned the street, and there were no other spots in sight. Not wanting to pump more change into an obviously broken meter, I just went inside to mail my package.

Six minutes later, you guessed it, I emerged to a parking ticket. These meter men must hide behind lampposts waiting for people to step away from their cars. Since I had attempted to feed the meter, and am not a scofflaw, I called the number for the Easton Police Department’s traffic division listed at the bottom of the ticket, explained what had happened and was told a parking officer would head right over.

After 30 minutes of shivering outside my car waiting for this officer, who obviously wasn’t coming since the police department is spitting distance from the post office, I got back in my car. I drove one street over, fed yet another meter that actually worked, and went into the police station to get some answers.

As a police station employee was trying to figure out what happened to the parking officer who was supposed to meet me, in he shuffled with a curmudgeonly attitude. He insisted that he had just tested the broken meter and it worked. After informing him that I had just spent half an hour standing next to the meter in question and he was not out there, he revealed he had tested a meter on Ferry Street. I was on South Second.

And then, he started walking away, obviously too busy to deal with a parking matter, even though it’s his job. My blood boiled, and I yelled after him to see if he had any plans to actually go back and look at the correct meter this time. Not my calmest moment. But seriously, is this how Easton police want to be known for dealing with the public?

Eventually, he stormed back out of the police station, leaving me to ask another officer if I was meant to follow him. I hustled around the corner to keep up with his van (God forbid he actually walk the block).

Without acknowledging me at all, he used a key to open the meter, removed it from the pole, shook it a few times then fed a quarter into it while it was still dismantled. And the coin registered. He shot me a smug look and informed me that, as I could see, the meter was working properly. I wanted to shout, “Yes, because you took it apart!” Perhaps I should have just kicked it a few times when I first walked up to it and it would have worked for me too.

It was now my turn to walk away from him, as he droned on about how he can tell if a meter is not working properly, and this one was in perfect order. His voice took on the sound of the Peanuts’ teacher. “Mwa-mwa-mwa.” It grew blessedly dim as I crossed the street. At least the silver lining to this afternoon of frustration is that writers always get the last word.

Back at the police station, I was told I could fill out paperwork disputing the ticket and the traffic lieutenant would review it to determine if they would excuse the fine. In my previous years covering police for The Express-Times, I’m not sure I ever met the current traffic lieutenant, but it seems his attitude matches that of his parking officer. When I called Monday to get a verdict on the fine, I was told that the lieutenant was not going to excuse the ticket, and the reason he wrote on the file was that the meter was tested and worked fine.

Am I missing something here? Is it really that difficult a concept to realize that if you take apart something that’s broken and rough it up a little, it may start working again? Perhaps the officer’s strategy should have been to feed the meter while it was still intact to make it an even playing field. I'm not the first, and I'm sure I won't be the last, person to come up against a broken meter, but the police department just doesn't care.

So, it appears I’m stuck with the fine which, although it’s only $20, is money I’d much prefer to spend on something more useful. I did ask if I had any other recourse to continue to fight the ticket. The suggestion? Don’t pay the fine, wait about a month and the magistrate will issue a citation. I can plead not guilty and get a court date. The catch? If the judge doesn’t excuse the fine at that point, it will be closer to $100. No thanks.